Why am I writing this blog?

Euclid (Cleveland), Ohio, United States
Here I share the amazing spiritual journey I began on July 19, 2007. I received the diagnosis of a golf-ball-sized tumor on top of the left parietal lobe (motor functions) of my brain. I had severe symptoms all up and down the right side of my body and had received an MRI scan of my brain. In August 2007, I learned that my diagnosis was a Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM). This is a common form of fast-growing brain cancer with a challenging prognosis. That's the external story about that moment in time. In the spiritual world I found (actually more like it found me) what I came to call the Fact-Based Spirit-Guided Path, and I began an amazing journey. After October of 2008, I lost the use of my right arm, and in early 2009, my cognitive abilities were struggling, and treatment options ended. My wife, Susanne, then began doing most of the blog postings, with my review and input whenever possible. I continued to apply the Fact-Based Spirit-Guided Path as the adventure continued. My soul then flew to the Kingdom of God on July 1, 2009. Thanks for your interest in my journey. Craig

Susanne's Perspective

During this entire journey, my wife, Susanne, had an entirely different kind of experience. Initially she added comments to some of my posts describing her experience of the moments I discussed and offerred perspectives on our relationship. In the latter stage of this journey, she is writing the blog, as I am no longer able to do so. I am truly delighted that she is doing so. Susanne and I work together as marriage educators/relationship coaches and she has written many books on preparing for and strengthening marriages so you can count on her comments to be insightful and poignant.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Friday August 17

(2.5% max level of steroids) Work colleagues Dave Leonard and Brian Bukovec brought lunch and we ate together on the patio. They have a very important meeting next week with a major customer that I used to manage, before I moved into a market development role, and really needed my input. We discussed the issues involved at length. It felt good to get back in the swing a bit.

Friday is farm market day in Euclid so we went shopping for vegetables there. On the way home we got into jovial speculation as to why the pathology report was taking so long. As I noted in “The Hospital” post, I had been visualizing building a cocoon around the tumor and sealing it with Superglue. We figured that the delay was from the doctors trying to figure out what the foreign substance was surrounding the tumor! We also knew that prayers were continuing, so perhaps the doctors were observing changes in the content of the samples.

Susanne and I decided to go out to dinner, and we talked about celebrating the successful surgery and our upcoming wedding anniversary. Susanne reminded me that before the surgery we had stated that our outcome from this challenge was to “achieve a higher level of spirituality”. I had totally forgotten that we had stated that as a possibility and both laughed about how well it had been accomplished. Stating a possibility like this is a practice we have adopted from Landmark Education and find it to be very powerful. We continued the conversation from the previous night about planning the course of action for the two possible outcomes of the pathology report, which we will receive Wednesday: (1) no further treatment needed or 2) further treatment needed. We stated our possibility going forward for both of us as “Being fact-based and spirit-guided”. For the first possible outcome, we agreed that it was pretty straight-forward (rehab activity for the right foot and return to work at the appropriate time). For the second possible outcome, we agreed that effort should go into generally catching up with our lives and also:

  • Identifying a structure for review of treatment recommendations we would expect to receive from a variety of sources
  • Addressing a technical problem with backing up key files on our computer system
  • Training Susanne to be able to do the rest of the reports and activities I take care of for the Marriage Transformation business

We also had a wonderful discussion about what we each need on a personal level to be prepared for the report and reaffirmed our love for each other.

I explained to Susanne that I’m seeing the fact-based spirit-guided path as a new paradigm that, at its core, would guide people to identify and stay connected with the FACTS regarding a particular aspect of their life (medical, personal, relationship, etc.) as a powerful means of avoiding high anxiety and speculation (two activities that are particularly detrimental to well-being). Susanne provided some key insights into specifying these two activities to be avoided. I also indicated that more fully understanding this is a work in progress and that I’ve appreciated the input she’s already provided. She encouraged me to continue the efforts to fully articulate what this paradigm means.

Following the conversation with Dr. Sloan’s secretary on Thursday (see Pathology Report Update 8/16) we were both pretty distraught. I decided to take a walk around the block. Susanne proceeded to make dinner. Probably not a good idea, but we still wanted to go to the Toastmaster’s meeting. She put one of our large pots on the stove without filling it first with water and turned on the heat. This destroyed the pot. After dinner Friday, we decided to go shop for a new set of cookware and decided that we would make it our anniversary present. August 28 will be 8 years we have been married and very happily so. We had a good time selecting just the right set.

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